


Mad Woman With a Box (and too many custard creams)

by Papapaldi



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Biscuits?!?!?!, Doctor Who Feels, Episode: s11e02 The Ghost Monument, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Platonic Relationships, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 01:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16316288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papapaldi/pseuds/Papapaldi
Summary: The Doctor and friends have settled down in the TARDIS after the event of The Ghost Monument. The Doctor and the TARDIS share a tender moment and Yaz can't help but be curious. There is some trouble with the biscuit dispenser (because the doctor shouldn't be trusted with that kind of power) chaos ensues.





	Mad Woman With a Box (and too many custard creams)

**Author's Note:**

> I realise this is going to be canon divergent by next week but I don't care, this is what happened.
> 
> Edit: turns out this could have totally happened in between episodes because the doctor tried to get them home 14 times, they all had time to change, and they could have slept overnight we don't know!?!??! so yep it's canon now thanks for coming to my TED talk

“Hello you,” the Doctor smiles, staring up between pillars of golden crystal to the blue humming lights and interwoven geometry of the TARDIS ceiling. “I’m sorry about exploding in here, again.” she rests a hand on the central console, the glass cylinder that held the heart of the ship in all it’s glorious interwoven psychic and archon energy. She can feel the ship humming – breathing – through the glass. All these years travelling, cut off from the Gallifreyan matrix, her TARDIS had developed not only a mind of its own – but emotions too, a conscience. What she had discovered, many years ago on a scrapheap in a pocket universe, was that the TARDIS had stolen her as much as she had stolen it – and just as isolation and self-determination had changed the TARDIS – solitude had transformed the Doctor as well. Beyond her rotating ensemble of friends and enemies and lovers – they two remained. The Doctor and the TARDIS. 

Appreciating the view, she takes a bite out of a custard cream, courtesy of the newly installed biscuit dispenser now situated on the console. “thanks for the biscuits,” she says, mouth full of custardy goodness, “you know – you always know just what I need, and right now, that’s biscuits.” She takes another bite of her prize, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, since crumbs burst from her mouth and settle on the TARDIS console. “Oh,” she sighs, “sorry about that! Man, that’s going to be difficult to clean out.” The Doctor tries to brush the crumbs off the console, but only succeeds in pushing them deeper into the intricacies of the golden layered surface. She winces as the crumbs disappear between handles and levers, hourglasses, spinning tops, keypads, and a manner of other contraptions. “I guess this is why you don’t give me biscuits often. I’m like your pet aren’t I?” she exclaims, waving her hands in the air energetically. “I’ve been good so I get a treat.” she smirks and mumbles, “oh, that’s priceless!” She couldn’t stop herself from smiling, she had decided – long ago – that she was going to die as she had been, yet here she was… alive and hopeful and – “never alone,” the Doctor whispers. 

“And look at all this!” she marvels, dashing around the domed room, trying to take in every tiny detail. “Plenty of round things,” she noted, observing the circular blue lights dotted around at seemingly random intervals, “always gotta have a few of those, or it doesn’t feel like home.” she comes to a halt, staring at it all in admiration, arms pressed by her sides and fingers twitching with fizzing zeal. Her face softens, her voice sincere. “I’m so glad I found you.”

Yasmin watched the Doctor through one of the many hexagonal shaped rings that separated the console room from the rest of the ship. They’d been exhausted after Desolation, and the Doctor had told them to just keep on walking until they found a door that took their fancy. Strangely enough, a bedroom had awaited her, one that reminded her of the bedroom waiting for her back home. She was feeling homesick, despite this being the exciting and perilous adventure she’d always dreamt of, and it was as is the ship had seen that and designed itself accordingly. The Doctor had said something about a psychic matrix but, to Yaz, it seemed more like magic. She was just fine with that. She had been unable to sleep despite her exhaustion, and had instead wandered back to the control room – though she couldn’t exactly remember the way, it seemed that the ship had rearranged itself around her path instead. She watched in fascination as the Doctor babbled on to the golden crystalline pillars and overhanging sci-fi lattice cocoon that surrounded her. It would have been strange under most circumstances, and it had certainly seemed that way at first – what, with the Doctor calling out to an inanimate phone box and whispering to it like a lost love – but Yaz could tell that this was no regular spaceship, if there was such thing as a regular spaceship after everything she’d seen recently. Watching the Doctor, one might conjure up the image of a mad woman, an old lady in a house long abandoned, calling out to ghosts. But there was something else to these two (because Yaz found herself counting the TARDIS as another being even now) a stifling loneliness, and a mystery that begged to be solved.

“Do you like my new friends?” The Doctor’s voice echoes through the room, “or strays, as you call them.” The TARDIS buzzed in response, a sound that came from somewhere deep beneath the floor where the central console stretched under the panelling, the mechanical roots of a great old tree. “Yeah,” the Doctor continues “I like ‘em too, they’re brilliant?” Yasmin didn’t notice she was smiling until the light struck her face, a bright golden haze that felt just like sunlight. The Doctor turned to look at her, spotting her face hidden between layers of honeycomb wall, her expression showing a mixture of embarrassment and pleasant surprise. So, the TARDIS decided it didn’t want her eavesdropping. “Oh, hello Yaz,” she said pleasantly, her voice rose to a higher pitch in her attempt to put on a conversational tone. “I thought you’d be sleeping.”

“I couldn’t sleep, too much to think about,” she admitted, stepping out of the alcove and into the central control room. “I’m sorry Doctor, I didn’t mean to intrude or anything.”

“Don’t be silly, I was just talking to myself that’s all. I do that quite a bit actually.” 

“This place is amazing.” She says, staring up at the ceiling and the shafts of not-quite-sunlight dancing across it. 

“Best place there is,” she declares joyously, while fiddling with an ornate lever sticking out of the console, which seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever – along with a number of other trinkets that littered the surface. “Outside those doors is anywhere in time and space, the whole universe… oh Yaz I can’t wait to show you,” she grinned, golden light sparkling in dark eyes illuminated to a soft earthy green. 

“I thought we were going home,” Yaz replies, immediately regretting it when the Doctor’s face fell. 

“Well yeah but, that won’t be the end will it?”

“No, no I don’t want it to be.” She stared once again around the ship, she suspected her neck would start to ache with all this craning after a while. “And I can’t speak for Ryan and Graham, but, I don’t think they do either.”

“Good,” she smiles, eyes brimming with hope. That fact continued to amaze Yasmin; the Doctor seemed to ooze hope, like an aura that hung around her and infected everything she touched. She had disliked the Doctor at first, barging onto a crime scene and taking over what should have been her breakthrough case. Most of that, she realised in hindsight, came from jealousy at her natural leadership, and her courage that teetered on the edge of raw insanity. She still understood very little about the Doctor, despite what little they had pressed out of her during the intermission between their first adventure and Grace’s funeral. Those few days had mostly been spent in silence, and in trying to weave a straight story around completely nonsensical events while you lied through your teeth about the most exciting night of your life. The Doctor had thrown around some pretty fancy sounding words like ‘Kasterborous’ and ‘timelord,’ but nothing was really said. 

“Who are you?” Yasmin asks, almost absent-mindedly, as if she were thinking out loud. “I mean, I know you’ve said but, I still don’t really understand.”

“Well,” she ponders, “I’ll admit I don’t really know the answer to that myself, but, who does?” she chuckles, now avoiding Yasmin’s gaze and busying herself with another strange alien contraption. She just didn’t seem to be able to keep her hands still. “I’m a traveller like I said. I grew up on Gallifrey, Kasterborous of the seven systems, barely scraped through the education system – second attempt actually – got bored, or scared, or both, and ran off to see the universe.”

“And then what?” She prompts.

The Doctor grins and waves, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “Hello!” 

Yasmin chuckles, still at a loss of what to make of this woman. She strokes the console subconsciously, the layers of the smooth surface shining like frozen amber, like trapped sunlight. She can feel that warmth, that energy buzzing just beneath the surface – that life. She turns back to the Doctor, mimicking the Doctor’s mischievous smirk. “You’re saying all this like it’s so complicated, but it’s like any story isn’t it. Small country town, which I guess one planet is compared to the scale of the universe, kid doesn’t fit it, wants an adventure, little bit scared of what the future might hold and – cue road trip.” 

“You summed it up quite nicely actually,” she admits, shrugging her shoulders, “that’s why I love you humans – you have a narrative archetype for absolutely everything, sense from madness, order from chaos – you’re always doing it.” She waves her hands around as she speaks, grand gestures that flow as effortlessly as her words. “Pretty long road trip though,” she considers, “I don’t think I’ll be going back home anytime soon, or ever – I’ve been running for over two thousand years and – I expect – many thousands to come,” she sighs, rolling her eyes at the prospect, “that’s daunting.” 

“Two thousand years,” Yaz repeated, incredulous, “no way.”

“Yeah, I coulda sworn I told you that already.” 

“Well, yeah but I thought you were joking or something.” Yasmin shakes her head in awed disbelief. “That’s crazy.”

“There are crazier things out there, I promise you.” She looks up at the TARDIS as she speaks, prompting Yasmin to bring up the thought that’s still lurking at the forefront of her mind.

“This place, the TARDIS you called it, is it really alive?”

“Oh yeah,” she says with pride, giving Yasmin a meaningful look, “you noticed then?”

“Well that, and you were talking to it.” 

“Yeah well, me and the old girl have been through everything together.” She drags her hand around the circumference of the centrepiece as she talks, and her voice practically drips with rosy nostalgia. 

“Old girl? You sound like an old bloke with a fancy antique car.”

“Well, I am an old bloke, historically. I actually had a fancy antique car once, her name was Bessie.” The Doctor is still looking whimsically out to the middle distance. 

“You know,” Yaz says, interrupting the Doctor’s musings, “I honestly can’t tell when you’re pulling my leg.”

“And you never will.” She exclaims, jumping back to attention and staring at Yaz with renewed enthusiasm. “Are you really not tired? Because I could show you the ropes if you’d like, mind you – I am certifiably terrible at flying her.”

“Well, that’s promising,” she chuckles. “Yeah go on, I don’t think I could sleep right now even if I wanted to.”

A few hours later, the Doctor is below deck underneath the console floor. The tangled mass of crystals and wires feeding up into the luminous machine above hum softly, while Yaz rests soundly against the Doctor’s shoulder. She had a great old time showing her new friend the basics of TARDIS piloting, while making quite a few mistakes of her own along the way. The console had shifted itself around a bit but the fundamentals were all there – yet, the Doctor suspected the TARDIS was making a fool of her on purpose, sending sparks flying and alarms blaring just to embarrass her in front of Yasmin. 

“I wish we could talk again,” the Doctor whispers, addressing the great crystal pillar housing the dancing lights and tendrils of the ship’s soul. “These conversations, they always feel a little one sided don’t they?” she chuckles to herself, all of a sudden overcome with melancholy. “I missed you, old girl,” she sighs, “thank you for everything you’ve done, are doing, will do – that’s how you’d say it isn’t it? Beyond the constraints of time and space, tethered to an idiot that just refuses to let you go.” The TARDIS sings a swishing reply, a warmth spreading through the walls at her back, the floor beneath her feet, a kindness that lives in these near infinite spaces, this dimension, entirely their own. “That’s not fair, I suppose. You wouldn’t let me go either, would you?” The Doctor smiles, tears forming in her eyes, overwhelmed at a psychic level, love from the eleventh dimension, beyond her reach. “Thank you, thank you for convincing me to stay.”

 

“Hey Doc? You in here?” Grahams voice rings crisply through the stagnant air, spurring the Doctor from rest. She hadn’t so much been sleeping as resting in a sort of nostalgia-fuelled coma, as was a dangerous habit of the elderly, and the immortal for that matter. 

“Down ‘ere Graham!” She calls back, gently shaking Yasmin awake. She hears Ryan blunder into the control room after him. 

“Phew, that bed was proper comfy Doctor. This place is amazing!”

“Told you Ryan, it’s very all that.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Yasmin yawns as she sits up and makes for the stairs. 

“What’re doing down there Yaz?” Ryan asks.

“The Doctor was showing me around and, I don’t know I guessed I just dozed off – not that it wasn’t exciting or anything –“ she adds hastily, “I was just exhausted.” The pair of them ascend the stairs and greet the boys. 

“How big is this place?” Ryan asks, “Because, I’m pretty sure I saw a swimming pool – and possibly heard an elephant.”

“Don’t be silly Ryan, it’s a spaceship, you don’t get elephants on spaceships” – he glances at the Doctor doubtfully – “right Doc?”

“Told you Graham, start believing.” She winks and bounces off towards the console, ready to plot their return trip to Sheffield. “Now, I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of breakfast – there’s a kitchen somewhere but I haven’t had a change to orientate myself, and there’s no way the food has lasted while this thing phased in and out of space-time for millennia.” The TARDIS responds with a whirring noise, almost like the purring of a cat. Both Graham and Ryan look taken aback, but Yasmin is starting to get used to the uncannily conscious reactions the ship tended to exhibit. “But” – the Doctor continues – “I have got this handy little custard cream dispenser, so” – the Doctor pushes the pedal underneath the central interface down, the action sending a biscuit sliding out and into a metal tray – “I’ve got plenty of custard creams to go around! Yaz?” She calls. She picks up the biscuit and throws it to Yaz, who catches it gratefully. “And – hang on,” the Doctor had pushed the pedal again, but no biscuit was dispensed. “Oh come on old girl, you trying to limit my sugar intake? You aren’t my mother, I’ll remind you.” She toggles the pedal impatiently. 

“Why’s she talking to a spaceship?” Graham mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

“I think it’s sort of maybe alive?” Yaz answers, watching with amusement as the Doctor pushes the biscuit peddle with increasing frustration. 

“Oh, right,” Graham sighs in a sarcastic tone, “of course it is.”

“Come on,” she mutters, “you can’t give me the power of biscuits and snatch it all away!” 

“Er, Doctor?” Ryan says, noticing – as they all did at this point – the deep rumbling sound coming from the TARDIS console. 

“Oh no.” The Doctor says, realising too late what was about to happen. First, one biscuit shoots out of the dispenser, then two, then three, and suddenly – at increasingly short intervals – custard creams are launching themselves at high speeds out of the central matrix and right at the Doctor. “Okay, okay, I get the hint!” she cries, trying to scoop up all the biscuits and stuff them into her pockets, “no more abusing biscuit privileges.” The barrage of sugary snacks stops abruptly, leaving the Doctor covered is crumbs and cradling about two dozen biscuits. She sighs, looking over at her three friends. They smile, stifling laughs but not wanting to be the first to fold. The Doctor gives them the go ahead by bursting into laughter herself, and the rest of them follow suit, the sight of her covered in biscuit dust is enough jerk tears from their eyes. Along with that, the four friends laugh away the fear of the last day or so, the hopelessness they’d felt, and the anxiety they felt towards a future so glaringly unknown – a future with the Doctor and the TARDIS and the whole wide universe. 

The Doctor finally composes herself and looks down dejected at the pile of biscuits in her arms and pockets. “What the hell am I going to do with all these custard creams?” A ding – almost like a microwave timer going off – sounds from the TARDIS console, and a small compartment unfolds beneath it like a glove box. Inside, the Doctor fishes out a black bum bag, her eyes full of wonder. “Oh, you’re brilliant you are, just brilliant!” She begins to shove biscuits into the bag. “And bigger on the inside too!” she exclaims as she reaches almost her whole arm into the recesses of the bag. Her friends stare on in amazement. Dimensional engineering, Yasmin thinks to herself, crazy stuff. The Doctor straps the bag around her waist – and just when Yaz thought her outfit couldn’t get any more ridiculous. The Doctor waves her arms out as if to say ‘what do you think?’ 

“A bold move, but practical,” Yaz comments, smirking sidewards at the boys. 

“Right then, breakfast!” she says, reaching into her bag.

Ryan chuckles, “actually Doctor, I think I’m alright.”

“Yeah,” Graham adds, “I think I’ve seen enough custard creams for today.” 

“You kidding me?” she asks, “what am I going to do with all these – actually, you know what,” she points at them meaningfully, the living embodiment of a light bulb moment, “road snacks,” she nods, before turning back to the console to plot their course home.


End file.
